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Final Four: Live Online For The First Time


Posted by Michael Singer, Apr 3, 2008 07:07 PM

UCLA vs. Memphis, Kansas vs. N. Carolina ... It will be the first time ever that a major U.S. sporting event has been shown live and in its entirety on the Internet.

Both games are on Saturday, April 5, so Final Four fans online shouldn't impact corporate IT networks that much. Still, traffic to the various sites is expected to be huge.

We started the InformationWeek College Hoops Challenge three weeks ago, and I must say, we've all been pleased that we're part of one of the biggest online events of the year. In total, there have been 4,333,207 unique visitors to the NCAA March Madness on Demand (MMOD) video player, a 147% increase over 2007's figures of 1,753,192 unique visitors.

My pick for the winners this year? CBSSports.com, CBS Sports, CBS College Sports Network, and their corporate sponsors -- AT&T, Coca-Cola, and Pontiac. CBS and its friends made bold choices by foregoing the registration process. And it's paid off.

In the first eight days of the tournament, there were 4,588,993 total hours of live streaming video and audio consumed, resulting in 69% year-over-year growth and counting.

Total hours of consumption for the 2008 Sweet 16 (March 27 and 28) were up 111% (589,308), while the average stream time for the Elite 8 (March 29 and 30) was more than 32 minutes.

Nearly 3.7 million fans are currently playing in bracket games across the Web, CBSSports.com said, including the largest bracket application on Facebook. The total number of CBSSports.com brackets participants is up 65% from 2007. Of the approximately 500,000 fans playing in the CBSSports.com Bracket Challenge, more than 51,000 users correctly predicted the four teams that have advanced to the 2008 Final Four.

Clearly, you fans have your favorites.

Remember that full game video and audio archives and highlight packages will be available on demand for all 63 games of the tournament through April 21.

We'll be back next week for postgame analysis, including talk about the College Hoops Challenge winners, and to assess how IT shops did with the surge in traffic.

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